The Best Colored Pencils?

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What are the BEST colored pencils? Prismacolor Premier, Faber-Castell Polychromos, and Caran d'Ache Luminance pencils are some of the most popular professional colored pencils. But which brand is the best for you? In this video, I provide an answer and it may not be what you expect.
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Related Drawing Courses...
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[marikothecheetah]

Coloured pencils are one thing - the paper is another half of the coin. I have tons of papers on which even student grade pencils behave like professional ones or quite the opposite - even the professional pencils are hindered by the structure of the paper. So when talking about coloured pencils I think talking about paper as well is equally crucial. Paper can make or break your drawing, despite your technique. Some papers will highlight burnishing better, other will be ideal for layering.

[rexgrl]

I love how Matt makes the choice of colored pencils subjective and doesn't push any one pencil as the "end-all-be-all" of pencils.

[pamelasportrayals]

Thank you Matt, not only for this video, but for all the videos you produce for us!😄

[donnad]

Thanks. Expanding my supplies. Will try a couple of these. Also, I "baked" my Prismacolor Premiers in a hot car. Layed them on some old cookie sheets and left them on the dashboard for 10 hrs. It was about 90°F out; approximately 140°F inside the car. Most are good now. Had to rebake a few.

[passinthru]

A good perspective on this subject. I bought a 72 colour Coloursoft set from Derwent and, other than sometimes wishing there were more hues, it layers well and does the job. I’ve supplemented with pencils from other brands.

[erstwhile]

I used Prisacolor pencils exclusively for decades, and loved them. Partly this was because, at the time I discovered them, they were the ONLY player in the premium colored pencil game. Some years ago, I started to have some issues with Prismacolor texture and laydown consistency in layers, so I gave Fabre-Castell Polychromos a try. I’d sampled a couple of their pencils for a monochrome drawing I was doing, and loved the texture, so I sprang for a large set of them in full color. I now use them primarily, and my Prismacolors gather dust. The velvety texture and layering with minimal bloom is pure pleasure to work with. However, one thing I still struggle to get used to, is the weird, designer colors. I’ve always structured my pencil “palette” the same way I do my paint palettes. I tend to use a very traditional palette, and Prismacolor has corresponding pigments that parallel the reliable warm/cool primary and secondary colors I’m used to reaching for as I mix and layer colors in an image. Polychromos doesn’t seem to have any real correspondence with the traditional palette. I’ve learned to compensate and work with what there is, but sometimes there just isn’t the color I need to achieve what I’m trying to create. It’s also a small thing, but I find it distracting that the colors painted on the wood of the pencils bears almost no relation to the actual color the pencil makes. Why do they do that?? That being said, I still really, really love the quality of Polychromos, and don’t really mind working around their weird palette of colors, since the pigments themselves are rich and flexible. However, after seeing this, I’m wondering about trying out the Caran D’ache pencils…

[ImeldaFagin]

I’m not a colored pencil person. I recently bought a set of Arteza colored pencils for mixed media work and I really like them. They are soft and give a lot of color. I don’t sharpen them very often because I prefer a thicker line.

[tricciavillela]

I agree 110% with you... Even more inexpensive materials can deliver great results, you just have to understand the pencil and also match them with the right kind of paper... Great vídeo 🙏🙏🙏

[johnkanzler]

I’ve had jars and jars of old school Prismacolors, all open stock. Years after switching media I finally sold them. A decade or more after that I got interested in colored pencils and was looking for them I realized what I had done. Started to buy a couple sets again haha

[jirikir]

What you say is mostly right. But the pricepoint and availablity depends where you live. Here in germany a full set of Polychroms are cheaper than a set of prismacolour. Today it's 100€ more for Primacolor. And you can get Polychromos open stock. It is hard to find Prismas open stock. You could find luminance and lightfast open stock easly, too.

[JTP]

Okay. I have always done my drawings in graphite. I like the look of graphite (I prefer using the Mitsubishi Hi-Uni graphite pencils, they are great). Anyway, I recently did a drawing for someone. As I was presenting it to her, there were many people in the room who saw the drawing, and everyone of them said, you should do them in color. Since I absolutely do not like paint, I decided to give colored pencils a go. I have the Castle Arts 120 set, the Black Widow 3 sets of 24 each, Crayola, Prismacolor Premiere 24 set, Prismacolor water color 12 set, Faber-Castell Polychromos 36 set, and the Faber-Castell Goldfaber 48 set. I did a drawing using each set exclusively. My favorite, of all the ones I used, were the Faber-Castell Goldfaber. I really wanted to like the Prismacolor (since everyone makes them out to be the best thing since sliced bread) but I really didn't think they were as good as the Goldfaber (I even like the black widow ones better than the Prisma's). Problem, they only come in a set of 48 colors max.

I only purchased a small set of the more expensive pencils to try them out. Now I want to purchase a set with a large selection of colors. I have watched MANY videos, each claiming to discuss "the best." But every one of them have been a huge disappointment.

This guy said, wait till the end of the video, so I did, and I'm still waiting. This video, just like every other video I watched, was pretty useless. I get it, "it depends on the user". Frankly, why take the time to make a video when the net result is, it's all up to you.

[renmuffett]

Thanks for sharing. For some of us, Lightfastness matters. What is best to me, has to do with lightfastness. 40 percent of the full Prismacolors is fugitive. So, I have bought several Prismacolors open stock. Several of the Polychromos are fugitive also. Holbein too. Luminance has claimed all theirs are lightfast but have found some are not. I really cannot stand the crumbs they leave behind. For the price, I don't care for them. I LOVE Caran D Ache Pablos though. Smooth yet firm and lightfast colors can be bought open stock. No crumbs. The only one brand sold in full set that will hold up to some very strong daylight for over a year is the Derwent Lightfast. The entire set is amazing for that reason. However one needs a firm pencil for details so I just buy those open stock. I love Caran D Ache Pablos for that.

[FernCurtis]

I truly believe that you “nailed it on the head”. I am not an artist in the truest sense, yet. Working on it though. Doing that by adding my own elements to the white negative space on images for coloring. The goal, eventually is to have photo realistic looking images. Got a ways to go, but getting there one step at a time.

However, I digress. So many times in the coloring world, I have seen people wanting to get Prismas or the Polychromos because, “they will make me a better colorist” mentality. Then they are upset when that doesn’t happen. They simply want an easy way out without learning the techniques. There is no easy way out. Want to improve? You have to learn the techniques, period. Even good old Crayola can deliver really good results. However, it takes a light hand building up those layers, to get them and as I have learned, even they react differently on different types of paper. On the right paper, with many layers, one can get really vivid colors. (I love my Prismas first of all and then my Polychromos, but I still like using my Crayola pencils at times. Yes, I am someone who layers all my pencils, regardless of which brand I use (at least most of the time). As you said, layers builds depth and dimension

[PursuingHeaven]

Lightfast is very close between Luminance and Poly Chromos so if you add that in the mix you have more lightfast professional colors to work with, I like all of them and use the all and pick what I need when I need it.

[susaniacuone]

I have been using prismacolour premier for a good long time, and love/hate them for exactly the reasons you noted. FC Polychromos are a newer acquisition and complement the prismas when a fine point is necessary. I don't have the budget for caran d'ache but that's ok. I'm gradually adding more to my 60 set of FC through open stock. Great video

[claritzairosario]

I'm totally agree with you, 100% done by the artist and then you come across the art supplies. It's difficult to know which is the best, there are many on the market!🤯 In my case, I have the Prisma colors premier, and the Faber castell polychromos, which mix well with each other. But there is a very important factor that you didn't mention, the lightfast issue! It's a big problem when you want to selling your product. When I found out about this... I was simply disappointed with the Prisma... but what I'm going to do is look at the color chart of the Prisma, for the ones with the highest lightfast, and buy them.🤷🏻‍♀️

[jackmemphis]

If available in your country, you should test out the Pablo from Carandach as an in between Prisma and Polychromos and cheaper than the Luminance. In France, they have the advantage to be available one by one so you can replace used color without buying the full pack. Which unfortunately is not the case with Prisma.

[angelashortall]

I just buy them all. That’s not even a joke. And then even if I don’t like the pencil brand I still have to buy the rest of the pencils for that brand because I have to have the full collection. I’ve got 150 sets of pencils. I got an problem.

[sansara]

Just imagine, for me is Faber Castel - black edition. It is a little funny, because I have 100 set Caran Dache 120 set polychromos and some coloured pencils of Holbein and very popular 150 set of prismacolor premier.
And even so I love black edition F C. For its briliant colours soft core, and perfect drawing of realistic animals, People portraits, birds...
❤Thanks for your video

[makingartwithvirginia]

Exactly! LOL. I like Prismacolor because I have been using them for almost 40 years. I still have some of my first ones.